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Husker head coach Bo Pelini just took his turn on the Big Ten teleconference.

The main topic was Nebraska's quarterback situation. Will Taylor Martinez be ready to return by the Oct. 5 game against Illinois?

Too early to tell.

"We're not going to put Taylor back out there in practice until he's 100 percent. He's not 100 percent yet," Pelini said. "He's improving, improving daily. We're going to continue to go business as usual with Tommy and Ronnie until Taylor tells us he's 100 percent."

Pelini said "we'll play that by ear" whether Martinez will be ready for the Big Ten opener.

"He's not going to practice until he tells us he's 100 percent, and he's not there yet.

*** Pelini said his defense has struggled as much when it's flooded the box with people as when it hasn't.

"The startling thing to me was the amount of missed assignments that we had, and lack of execution in doing your job that was unacceptable last week. It was glaring. We had a ton of, a ton of, missed assignments."

Pelini said the process of fixing it is a responsibility that goes both ways between coaches and players.

"I think our guys understand that. Our players, I think, were embarrassed by how they played. We approach the film in a black and white manner. This is what it is. And this is what we need to get fixed going forward. And it's well within our grasp."

*** About Nebraska's 2-gap scheme: "The notion of what we do 2-gap-wise is a fallacy to some extent, in how we play. We don't have guys just sitting there, saying, 'Hey, you have two gaps.' That's not our philosophy and never has been. That's a little bit of a misnomer."

Pelini said Husker coaches have probably called more 1-gap scheme than since he's been here.

"But that some time can become a little more glaring in stopping the run because when you have one guy that's out of his gap, you can get hurt a little bit more. At the end of the day, it's first and foremost, understanding. It's being able to adjust and being able to execute job. And once again that goes back to coaching. We've got to coach it better."

Reach Brian Christopherson at bchristopherson@journalstar.com or 402-473-7439. Follow him on Twitter @HuskerExtraBC.

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